Why being a working mother is like having tapas for dinner

How many times have I heard people say that the modern woman can “have it all”? So many that I’ve lost count. I’m here to say that you can’t. Anyone who says you can is either kidding herself or has a very different definition of “all” than I do.

You know what I’m talking about. It’s one of the most common dilemmas for women today; career or children.

Feminism and the women’s liberation movement have given us so many options that I sometimes feel like it would be easier to go back to being oppressed. At least when women had so few rights, they didn’t put unrealistic expectations on themselves. In many cases they simply accepted that their lot in life was to raise children and look after their husband and household. Sounds gleefully uncomplicated, doesn’t it? (Notice I didn’t say easy.)

I am playing Devil’s advocate here; I don’t actually want to be a 50s housewife. But I never expected to feel so conflicted about motherhood.

My pregnancy was unplanned and came as quite a shock, even though in the back of my mind I had always believed I would eventually find the right time to have children. And in retrospect, it was probably for the best that it happened of its own accord, because as many parents will tell you, there really is no “right time” to have children.

So despite not being sure I was totally ready, I took a deep breath and stared square in the face of impending motherhood. For the most part I was excited and looked forward to life with our new little family member, but there was a little niggle in the back of my mind that I really wished wasn’t there; the one that told me I was “giving up” and turning my back on my career, which I have worked hard to develop.

It didn’t help that once I made the announcement, people immediately started to treat me differently. They weren’t rude, or unkind, but they inadvertently became a little condescending, and enjoyed making jokes about how my life was over now. Even other parents chimed in and seemed to relish in telling me how I would never sleep again, how my “glamorous international career” as one friend called it, would have to take a backseat to the new little driving force in my life, when she arrived.

At work, instead of talking to me about the projects I was working on, people would drop in and head-tilt at me; Aww, there’s the little mother. Look at that bump! So cute! Etc, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked discussing my baby and my pregnancy. After all, it was a huge deal. I was excited, and scared, and I have always been the sort of person who likes to analyze things by talking them out with friends. But again, that little voice was there, telling me this was all I was now; something that anyone can be. Parents are a dime a dozen, and as much as they like to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves they are doing the most important job in the world (which actually, they are), they are boring to people who haven’t done it yet. It feels like being put out to pasture. I was no longer a racehorse, I was a breeder.

No longer was I someone to be admired for having the aforementioned glamorous international career; I was just another woman heading off on maternity leave. Around me, my colleagues were being promoted, or given jobs and projects that might otherwise have been offered to me. It stung.

Then the baby was born. Everything changed. I no longer cared, not only about my career, but about anything that wasn’t directly related to my baby. I would find myself getting immediately bored whenever the subject changed away from parenting, and I’d have to mentally slap myself so that I could stay focused on what other people were saying. I had become what I previously said I never would; one of those annoying people who have nothing in their life besides their child. And I didn’t care who knew it.

The career woman in me was still there, albeit gagged, stuffed in a box and buried alive. I heard her muffled cries a few times, but was unsympathetic to her plight; she’d had her day, and really felt like no great loss. I surrounded myself with other mothers, and lived and breathed babies for 15 or so months.

But one has to come out of that baby fog eventually, if only because most women eventually have to return to work. I had taken as much time off as possible, adding a few unpaid months to the 12 or so paid months we get here in Norway. But we couldn’t afford for me to stay home forever, and when I’m completely honest with myself, I have to admit I was getting bored. And so was my daughter. There just wasn’t enough to keep either of us entertained, stuck at home alone together. Even though I arranged outings almost every day, and regularly spent time with the other mothers I’d met during my maternity leave, it wasn’t enough to keep my brain nourished. I started to want to talk about something else again.

A few months before I was due to return to work, I was told that there had been a restructure, and they weren’t going to be running customer projects out of the Oslo office anymore. So essentially my job didn’t exist anymore, but they were willing to find something else for me to do. I was given a couple of opportunities to think about, and I took the one that offered me the most flexibility and the least pressure. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now that I’m back, I don’t exactly regret my decision. Any of my decisions, actually, because if I did anything differently, my daughter would have less of me than I want her to have. My job is secure, flexible, and nowhere near as demanding as project work was. No more travel, no more late night teleconferences, no more working until late on Christmas Eve to satisfy demanding customers. I can work from home when or if I need to, and my new boss (a mother herself) is very understanding if I ever have to drop everything and leave in an emergency. The perfect compromise? Maybe. But it also means that as long as I’m no longer a project manager, my skills are getting lost, forgotten and outdated. When I am ready to get back into more demanding work, I have lost the most valuable thing one can have in the IT Industry; recent, relevant experience.

I don’t know too many men who have had to do this to their careers when they have children. Most of them take the minimum amount of parenting leave, and still pursue their careers, hobbies and friendships much as they did before. True, maybe they spend more evenings and weekends at home than they used to, but when they go out, or have to work late, or spend a weekend away, they feel justified. Speaking for myself, as much as I sometimes long for a weekend away, or even an evening, I am plagued with guilt and worry the entire time.

Sure, it is possible for a woman to bottle feed her baby, share the parental leave in a different ratio with her partner (at least here in Norway it is), and return to work without missing a beat. But what does that do to her relationship with her baby? Some would argue that it doesn’t have any negative impact, if the baby is well cared-for in her absence. You could even say that it’s better for both of them to learn to be apart. But it’s still not “having it all”, is it? You are handing over the care of your baby to others, so that you can pursue a career.

I can’t speak for other women who have chosen to do it this way, but I know I wouldn’t have been happy about it. I feel bad enough already that my daughter is seeing more of her kindergarten carers than she is of her parents, and she was over a year old by the time that happened. Plenty of babies today are in daycare from only a few months of age. That may work for those parents, and good luck to them, but I still argue that it’s not “having it all” to do it that way. It’s having a little bit of a whole bunch of different stuff. But for me, well let’s put it this way; I never feel like tapas is a real meal, even if I am full afterwards.

I think the main difference between men and women in this situation is expectation. Men don’t generally expect to be able to spend all day, every day with their children. They expect that someone (be it the mother, or some other person) is going to take care of their child while they work. They have done this pretty much since the beginning of human history. Women, on the other hand, still have all that history to overcome. For many of us, we spent our early years at home with our own mothers. It’s difficult to be the generation that does things so differently for the first time. The old expectations, desires and feelings of responsibility are fighting with the new ones.

The more time you spend being a mother, the less time you can spend focused on your career. At best it is a balancing act. I’m not the kind who can forget she ever had a career, and find total fulfillment in being a full-time mother even if it were financially viable. But I can’t go back to my old working life either.

The key to happiness is, I guess, finding the balance you can live with.